If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Database doesn't start automatically

I have a 9i database server running on a windows 2000 server. The server has 3 databases running on it. ONe production database and 2 test db's. All three db services are set to automatic and start up when the server is booted up. But the production database doesn't start up automatically. the instance starts but not the db. If i conncet to it and start it up manually it starts up with no errors. I don't understand it the 2 test db's start up automatically just fine.

nothing in the alert log. I even renamed the log, rebooted the server so that it would create a new log. I looked for the new alert log but it hadn't created one yet. I connected to the db as sysdba, it said connected to an idle instance and when I started up the db that's when it created a new alert log, but it didn't have any errors. It looked clean.

Look at the registry, there was an entry for the sid that sometimes needed to be changed so that the database autostarts. It should be in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Oracle ora_sid_autostart. Make sure it is set to true.

I have a 9i database server running on a windows 2000 server. The server has 3 databases running on it. ONe production database and 2 test db's. All three db services are set to automatic and start up when the server is booted up. But the production database doesn't start up automatically. the instance starts but not the db. If i conncet to it and start it up manually it starts up with no errors. I don't understand it the 2 test db's start up automatically just fine.

Don't you mean the "Windows Service" started but not the database? I'm with Gandolf on this - check the registry AUTOSTART setting

i am sure some one would have madofied the service using oradim to make it manual or.. created with manual option and then at windows service level made it run "AUTO" ( which is equivalent to saying idle instance )..

funky...

"I Dont Want To Follow A Path, I would Rather Go Where There Is No Path And Leave A Trail."

"Ego is the worst thing many have, try to overcome it & you will be the best, if not good, person on this earth"

Oracle doesn't start.

Hi Everyone,

I was never fond of the autostart functionality of the windows service. I always use it in a manual mode and use CMD scripts to start/stop the database, with an SQL that connects as SYSOPER. This gives one good advantage, you can log the SQL to find the reason for problems, this cannot be achieved with this autostart of the Oracleservice.

First you can check if the service starts at all manually using:
(in a CMD window)
net start Oracleservice

This could display some errors you will normally not see otherwise.
Where I work someone before me set up this autostart service. Once I had a problem, and when I tried to start the service manually I got a message : " the service could not start .....". I had to reboot the Windows server.
This might not be the issue, as when you say the database starts manually, it should be ok with the service. Also you can check the Eventviewer, sometimes it can lead you to the problem.

My collegues told me a long time ago they could not restore the database - this was because the script that stopped the database using "net stop" before the backup did not see that the Oracleservice "could not be stopped". This is very dangerous, you may suddenly discover you do not have a valid backup when you use a COLD backup.

I had many problems with the Oracleservice and sometimes only removing it and recreating could solve my problems, don't forget to remove the files from %ORACLE_HOME%\database related to the Oracleservice after deleting the service with ORADIM.

The next reason I don't like the autostart is because when you want to find out, why the database does not start you have to go through annoying log checks and I find it a waste of time. The last reason why I don't use this autostart feature is that when I posted this problem to Oracle (oracleservice start problem), the first suggestion from Oracle support was :
"don't use the autostart feature of the Oracle service, set it to manual".

Thanks guys for the help. I checked my registry and the reg key for autostart is set to true. Although I was telling the DB at my company the problem and he was having the same issue with one of his db's and his autostart reg key was set to false. So it fixed his problem just not mine.

Well, are you sure there is nothing in the alert.log?
There are 2 reasons for that
1) Service starts, the instance is not started because of the registry key mentioned
2) The Service starts, then instance tries to start but fails due to some problems.
Since you are not in case 1 you should be in case 2. Look at the alert.log, OS event viewer etc